


Chasing Ghosts

by apinchofcyanide



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassins, M/M, Psychopaths In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apinchofcyanide/pseuds/apinchofcyanide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is a non-smoking building," he hissed as the insufferable man lit up a cigarette; Paul only smirked and blew a plume of sour smoke his way. Lee drew his gun. “It’s five in the morning, I’m exhausted, and I will shoot to kill."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> For a Tumblr prompt: "Lee + late night." 
> 
> Lee and Paul do not belong to me. They belong to [madmadamek](http://archiveofourown.org/users/madmadamek) and I was allowed to play with them only if I promised to return them (relatively) unscathed.

"Late night?"

Lee was not scared. He resolutely did  _not_ flinch at the sound of the voice, or the sight of a familiar-but-unwanted someone splayed on his sofa when he turned on the lights, and if he did happen to cry out it was certainly a very manly sound and  _not_ a high-pitched scream like a child might have emitted. 

He was a professional, goddamn it.

"How’d the hunt for the Next Great James Look-A-Like go?"

Lee ignored the question. “What are you doing here?" he demanded. He had a loaded pistol in the holster beneath his jacket and absolutely zero patience for whatever game was being played. All he wanted to do was peel off his suit and fall into bed, and maybe sleep for the next year or twenty. 

Paul made no move to get off the couch, and instead actually sank further into the cushions, arching his back like a cat, perfectly at home like they were in  _his_ apartment and Lee was the intruder as opposed to the other way around. 

"This is a  _non-smoking building_ ," he hissed as the insufferable man lit up a cigarette; Paul only smirked and blew a plume of sour smoke his way. Lee drew his gun. “It’s five in the morning, I’m exhausted, and I will shoot to kill."

Paul got to his feet. He had a strange way of moving without seeming to—one second he was sitting, and the next he was standing. Lee figured it was a side effect from spending so much time in the shadows. One would start to pick up certain—habits, he supposed. Moving without drawing attention to oneself, doing so in such a way as to fool even those looking right at you, was probably an invaluable skill to Paul, one that ensured his continuing survival. 

"You don’t have to keep skirting the question," said Paul, right up in Lee’s space now. Again, he’d moved so close without Lee even really noticing, too focused on other things: the way his lips caught on the cigarette, or the way his eyes sparkled with some hidden knowledge behind his damnable tinted glasses. All things Paul  _wanted_ him to focus on, the entire image specifically tailored to catch Lee’s attention and hold it. 

Paul reminded Lee of one of those Lovecraftian monsters—as long as one did not look too close, they saw only the veil, the safe, attractive image that lulled them into a false sense of security. Look _beyond_ the veil, though, and one could very well be driven mad by the abomination beneath it. 

"We’re on the same side, after all," Paul said, and Lee laughed in his face.

"Excuse me?" he said, and then: “You have some nerve, breaking into one of my  _safe-houses_ after yesterday."

He was speaking, of course, of the latest in a long line of debacles taking place during their customary “Big Seven" meetings. Paul had, as usual, gotten into a pissing match with James, who, being under a terrible amount of stress lately, had in a rare and yet spectacular fashion given Paul the verbal lashing of his life. With everyone looking on. It was a low blow, Lee knew, bringing up Paul’s recent humiliation, but he could not deny the satisfaction he got from seeing the tick in Paul’s jaw—a crack in the facade—or the way his eyes narrowed just the slightest bit behind those ridiculous glasses.

"I mean," Lee continued, enjoying himself too much now to quit while he was ahead. “Potentially compromising the cover of a fellow agent like this? What would our esteemed leader say?"

"You tell me," Paul snapped. “You  _are_ the expert." His gaze pointedly fell to the spot on Lee’s neck where a purplish-green bruise was beginning to bloom.

Lee considered himself a calm man, capable of amazing feats of patience and restraint, but Paul was testing what little resolve he possessed after the exhausting night he’d had. If he’d come here to simply to goad Lee, then congratulations were in order.

"You’ve made your point," he said, trying to move past Paul. “Now if you’d kindly get the fuck—"

The rest of his sentence was lost as Paul grabbed the lapels of his blue silk jacket and pulled him close, their mouths crashing together, and it was not  _nice_ by any stretch of the imagination. A clash of teeth, of hands pushing and pulling hard enough to bruise, half-aborted fatal maneuvers as their momentum propelled them into the nearest wall, Lee hitting the back of his head so hard he saw stars.

It wasn’t as though Lee had never thought about Paul in such a way. He  _had_ , however fleetingly. He had always felt a strong attraction to the aggressive, stubborn type—there was a reason he’d been in love with James for so many years—and Paul was nothing if not aggressive and stubborn. And, despite being a man capable of amazing feats of restraint, Lee was also only human, and suffered from a pervasive weakness for beautiful men. A category Paul also, unfortunately, fell into.

The kiss—if it could even be called that; violent, explosive mess that it was—only broke when oxygen deprivation became an actual threat. Lee was fairly certain he tasted blood as Paul pulled back, though his own or Paul’s he couldn’t say.

Paul gave him a single appraising look, and then, to Lee’s confusion, handed him a business card. It was completely blank except for a phone number written in tight, compact scrawl.

Paul started for the door, leaving Lee leaning there bewildered against the wall, card in hand. “I don’t understand," said Lee, although he was afraid he understood all too well.

"It’s a direct line to me." Paul was already halfway out of the apartment. "In case you ever get tired of chasing a ghost."

Really though, Lee thought, it would be like exchanging one ghost for another.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please consider visiting my [website](http://paigewrites.com), or taking a look at my [Patreon](http://www.patreon.com/paigewrites).


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